


Tubbo in a Box

by softnotlizzie



Series: Tommy's Interludes [3]
Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: 2020 L'Manberg Election on Dream Team SMP (Video Blogging RPF), Angst, Dream Team SMP Spoilers, Gen, Internal Conflict, L'Manberg War of Independence on Dream Team SMP (Video Blogging RPF), Manberg Festival on Dream Team SMP (Video Blogging RPF), Manberg-Pogtopia War on Dream Team SMP Spoilers (Video Blogging RPF), Post-Manberg-Pogtopia War on Dream Team SMP (Video Blogging RPF), Pre-Manberg-Pogtopia War on Dream Team SMP (Video Blogging RPF), Short One Shot, The meeting with Dream, Tommy's Exile??, author is projecting, is that even the tag?, more tommy angry! tommy go brrrrr, no beta we die like men, well yes but also no, yet again
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:34:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27853474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softnotlizzie/pseuds/softnotlizzie
Summary: Here we go again, yall. If you know my tumblr, you'll know that the recent events involving Tommy on the SMP have filled me with rage! (appropriate level for a role-play...maybe) so I wrote another interlude. This is before, during, and slightly after the meeting from Dec 2. Tommy mostly reflects, plans, some dialogue! It's a fun one!
Relationships: Clay | Dream & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit, Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit & Phil Watson, TommyInnit & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF)
Series: Tommy's Interludes [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2033278
Comments: 10
Kudos: 98





	Tubbo in a Box

**Author's Note:**

> I FUCKING LOVE YOU PEOPLE! !!! Comments make me so happy you have no idea, and i post these late at night and get to wake up to sweet messages and people leaving kudos and enjoying my work? indescribable. literally this makes me happier than i have been in a long time. Also, I promise i love Dream and Quack and Fundy and certainly Tubbo, just kinda getting defensive of Tommy bc of their characters!! This is important to remember yall, if you get cranky with CCs because of events of a role-play, you should work on your personality issues :) Thanks! Enjoy as always!!

The intensity with which Tommy was holding back his boiling anger was getting to a concerning level.

Here he sat, his leader and best friend to his right, the rest of the cabinet directly across, and his current mortal enemy just inches away from his own left arm. The arm that kept twitching at the restraint he was using to keep from instinctually drawing his weapon.

The air in the room was so dramatically tense, and he wondered if the others simply couldn’t feel it. They’re shoulders didn’t even seem as though they were attempting to support the wait of the world. Tommy supposed it was his death sentence, after all.

It had taken him hours upon hours to come down from the little stunt on Sunday. He had not been able to fall asleep that night, and he’d forced himself to create a wide berth from Fundy and the others, simply not trusting his ability to stay calm, especially as worn out as he was. The incident with Dream had been plenty enough. The smirks he gave to Tommy when he knew the others paid no attention. The words he used, fully aware of how they would itch on Tommy’s patience. The threats he made, the ego he boosted…

Tubbo’s words had been another. On an entirely different plain of existence. He’d gone so far as to doubt his own decision to trust his best friend with Tommy’s most prized possession: his only remaining disc. He’d hated himself for it as soon as the thought surfaced, but it had been similar to the course of his emotions lately: completely and entirely impossible to ignore. 

So there’d he’d been, lying in bed, face towards the ceiling. He knew what sat just inches away, collecting dust in his ender-chest. Before then, he hadn’t even thought of using it. What it might mean for Tommy. For L’Manburg. 

Then, with absolutely no expectation of ever actually sleeping, Tommy had wanted nothing more than to retrieve that worthless scrap, bring it to Tubbo and parade it in his face.

“Look! Look what I’ve got! Don’t you see? Everything will be alright now! He’s got nothing on us! Right, Tubbo? Right?”

Right?

He hadn’t, of course. If Tubbo wanted him to sit pretty, then he would. Or, he would try. Tommy had no hope and no intentions of abandoning his nature so early in the conflict. 

In all honesty, when the walls first rose and they discovered the cause, even Tommy had considered it a bit much. All this? Because Tommy was careless in the midst of what was meant to be reckless fun? That was just…normal Tommy. Nothing out of the ordinary.

He realized far too late that the intention was, all along, to create problems. Dream couldn’t give less of a fuck about what happened to George’s house. Sure, the latter had a fancy title and a hunk of stolen metal, but he held no power. No one on the server would follow “King George” if ever the choice arise.

Dream knew it. Eventually, Tommy caught on as well.

That inexcusable man had always been the side of chaos. Though Schlatt’s reign, at this point, felt so long ago, Tommy remembered exactly what he’d said. It wasn’t as if anything had changed. 

Except, Tommy supposed, for L’Manburg. For once, the little dream of a country had been at peace. They were growing, thriving, healing. No chaos in sight.

Unacceptable. 

So, this was Dream’s true motivation, and there was no way around that. Tommy wanted to tell Tubbo, but he had a feeling the older boy wouldn’t change anything at the realization. And honestly, Tommy didn’t feel like giving Tubbo anything he didn’t explicitly ask for.

Tommy had said it before and he’d say it again: what Tubbo was doing was wrong. In reversed positions, Tommy wouldn’t even think of punishing Tubbo, let alone all because Dream had demanded it. They were different people, of course, but Tommy had always thought they were equals. 

Apparently not. 

So, after a sleepless night, Tommy rose from his poor excuse of a bed. Left his little house, scarred and damaged from too many careless explosions to count. He turned to his left, towards L’Manburg, and went the other way. 

For three days, Tommy avoided Tubbo like the plague. He spent time deep in mines, in the Nether, on unclaimed land. Sometimes, he didn’t leave his house at all. Didn’t step foot in L’Manburg. During the times when Tubbo was out-and-about, chatting cheerfully with Ranboo or on some other important business, Tommy craned his head downwards and walked directly past. Tubbo noticed, obviously. Once or twice, he called for Tommy. The younger boy did not turn. So Tubbo stopped calling. 

And every night, Tommy would return to his stone hut. He’d sort the day’s work into his chests (he’d fucking sorted his chests. What the fuck was wrong with him?) and fetch one of about 25 books and pick up his quill. He’d sit in bed, and write. Wrote about his day and his activities, as very specifically instructed, and nothing more. Save a bit of snarky sarcasm and a couple poorly directed insults. Every day, he found someone heading towards L’Manburg, and had them take the book to Fundy. Tommy did not go himself. He did not see Fundy at all.

Quackity, unsurprisingly, offered a brief respite. He tagged along to the Nether with Tommy, and though he was considerably unhelpful in terms of collecting resources, Tommy allowed Q to distract him endlessly with bad jokes and offensive impressions of Wilbur. But it was nice. Despite the palpable tension, the awkwardness was not present. If Q had been trying to ease Tommy’s clearly distraught spirit, he’d at least partially succeeded. That night, Tommy had written about Quackity in his little diary. 

And then Today came along entirely too quickly. It felt like hours before Tommy was walking left out of his house, for the first time in days. He’d barely slept, though, so he wasn’t concerned at all with his lack of time perception. 

Along the way, Conner joined him, and though the man was quite unfamiliar and honestly entirely useless, Tommy didn’t mind the presence. This way, he was offered some more gentle distraction and did not have to face Tubbo and the others looking like a complete loser. 

Though just the sight of those walls immediately triggered Tommy’s fight-or-flight response—particularly fight--, Tommy had been able to utilize a newfound skill of suppressing his anger which he had been forced to learn upon the realization that this anger, this horrible, consuming anger he’d rarely felt before, would become much more familiar to him in the coming days.

Nothing much went on before the actual meeting. Tommy tried hard to seem unbothered, putting on the mask of his everyday personality and praying Tubbo wouldn’t be able to see through it. He cursed and laughed and feigned childlike innocence, and for the rest of the time, he stayed quiet. So no, nothing much went on.

Oh, except for the discussion about what Fundy and Quackity seemed to believe was Tommy’s imminent exile from L’Manburg. 

Tommy had been silent when Tubbo first said it.

“…and the worst case-scenario is that we exile Tommy according to Dream’s orders.” 

Tommy had been silent, but not calm. In fact, he’d been rather stunned into silence. Tubbo was actually considering it. Tubbo was…Tubbo…

By the time Tommy tuned back into the conversation at hand, they’d moved on. Before long, Fundy suggested they get going. He met no objection. And so, they went.

So here we are. 

Tommy’s current predicament included wrestling unbearable rage and true panic—something he hadn’t felt, or hadn’t admitted to feeling, since hearing some very fateful words come out of Wilbur’s mouth—while trying desperately to please Tubbo. Quiet and peaceful, he constantly reminded himself, to the point where they didn’t even sound like words, just garbled noises in a language not known to humankind. 

It was uncharacteristic of Tommy to be so determined to please Tubbo. To please anyone, really. He hadn’t even been this dedicated to Wilbur, in his own opinion. Something in Tubbo’s eyes begged Tommy to comply, however. And now, he found himself doing just that.

Dream had been taunting him plenty thus far. The same smirks and sideways glances, and when Tommy had hesitantly opened his mouth to call the man out on it, though barely trusting his own tongue, the accusation had simply bounced harmlessly off of Dream’s shining armor. 

Meanwhile, Tubbo, Quackity, Fundy, Tommy, and even Ranboo, sat defenseless. They were within the nonviolent confines of the Holy Lands, after all. Tommy had no time to wonder what that said about Dream’s character. 

Honestly, Tommy barely heard what was said. He’d been so set off into blind fury that all he’d been doing was trying to fight it brutally back into that corner of his heart he’d reluctantly set aside. It wasn’t working. 

At some point, after signing the stupid book and throwing around a few mindless insults, all hell broke loose.

Tommy realized he’d already begun blocking out the memory of what had happened there, but he remembered flashing the flesh of Dream’s dead horse in his face, claiming bloody victory, before the group of them crowded Dream towards L’Manburg, pride and the winning spirit in their hearts. 

Except for Tubbo. 

Fundy and Quackity, however, had been ecstatic. Together, they whooped and cheered and laughed as Dream began tearing down the walls. They had won.

Meanwhile, Tommy stood facing Tubbo, and realized in that moment that they were not facing each other on the same ground, for the first time in their relationship.

When Tubbo looked at Tommy then, he saw an enemy. 

From then, Tommy didn’t even think it could get worse.

It did, of fucking course. 

And Tommy had never been scared of Dream. He hadn’t ever really been scared at all, through all of it. Hadn’t been scared when Schlatt banned him and Wilbur, when Wilbur’s sanity took a turn for the worst. He hadn’t even been scared when his entire body had been violently forced backwards due to the power of the blast. Wilbur’s TNT. 

But as Tommy stood there, facing a lifeless mask, Dream’s harsh words swimming in his ears, he felt scared. 

Scared because he was quite sure no one had ever seen Dream this angry.

Scared because he could practically feel Tubbo’s tension, his eyes on Tommy, his own fear leaking into the air.

Scared because in that moment, Tommy finally realized that he had made the wrong decision this time. 

He’d been too confident. Fuck! He’d been working on mere hours of sleep, absolutely no allies, the threat of losing everything being thrown in his face at all times. And he’d gotten cocky. And he’d really fucked up this time. Dream was right. 

Tommy had gone on a rant, just days before, about how he needed to be trusted because he really did make good decisions, even if it didn’t always look like it at first. He’d believed that Tubbo had no grounds to do what he was doing. He’d believed that Wilbur would be proud of Tommy, and disappointed in Tubbo.

Now, he had no bloody idea what to think.

In the minutes it took Tommy to process this information, Dream had climbed back onto the wall and gotten to work on doubling their size. Tubbo hadn’t spoken, only stared directly into Tommy’s fucking soul.

Quackity immediately blamed Tommy. Fundy was by his side. Tommy quickly deemed the two just followers, just sheep. They’d been with Tommy just minutes before. He didn’t give a fuck what they had to say.

But Tubbo…

Everything the president said had merit, Tommy thought. He had had one job. He had failed. Miserably so. And yes, if the roles were reversed, Tubbo wouldn’t be in this position in the first place.

It still hurt to hear it.

With each word, Tommy shrank in on himself. He had never before deliberately made himself small, but just then, he wanted to sink into the ground and never be seen again. He’d never been quiet when he wanted to speak, but then, Tommy had thousands of words, excuses, apologies, on his tongue and couldn’t get a single thing out of his mouth.

At some point, Tommy ended up turned away from Tubbo. He wasn’t sure if Tubbo had moved or if he himself had. 

“Selfish,” Tubbo spat.

Tommy whipped around. 

Looked Tubbo in the eye for the first time since his silly little trial. 

He opened his mouth to speak, the swears just burning on his tongue, eating up his mouth. 

Someone beat him to it.

He wasn’t sure how Ranboo got to be standing where he was now. He’d been there the whole time, lurking silently, though buzzing and glitching slightly anytime something particularly harsh was said. In less than a second, Ranboo was stood between Tommy and Tubbo.

“I have to stop you there,” said Ranboo in the most sophisticated voice Tommy had ever heard the man use. However, he did not fail to notice the way Ranboo almost screeched like an enderman, just barely audible before he began to speak.

And then Ranboo defended Tommy. 

Told the truth, how Ranboo had been with Tommy, had egged him on and assisted him at George’s house. How the whole thing had been a prank turned into an accident, really. At some point, through the haze of surprise and the general rough state he was in, Tommy confirmed Ranboo’s story, at his president’s request. 

Tommy wanted to thank Ranboo, but he could barely control his limbs. Beyond the shock, the dread, the burning anger left over, there was exhaustion. So heavy on his limbs, on his mind, that he felt as if copiloting his own body. 

Thankfully, Tubbo just left. Took Fundy and Quackity with him, and after Tommy gave Ranboo a salute and what he hoped was a meaningful glance, the former walked off as well.

Tommy didn’t blame him. Hell, if Tommy was exiled, Tubbo would be needing a new cabinet member.

And he’d never thought it would happen. Tommy had never in a million years questioned his bond with Tubbo. Of course, Tubbo wouldn’t let anything happen to Tommy. But it turns out he would. Tubbo simply wouldn’t let anything happen to L’Manburg.

In that moment, as he walked aimlessly in any direction away from those walls, his mind strayed back to Wilbur. 

It often did, these days. 

He found himself asking that question Wilbur had asked as well, along this same worn path. 

I wonder if he’d be proud of me…

Of course, Wil had been referring to his own father, and the two hadn’t been emotionally connective in years upon years.

Tommy’s end with Wilbur hadn’t been positive, but they both knew that the other loved them and would’ve done anything for them.

Wilbur had been tired. And Tommy was scared to say it (he already hated this “scared” feeling, and was reminded of why he’d cut it off so long ago) but he understood why Wil did what he did in the end. Tommy was tired too.

He meant it when he said that he’d sacrificed enough. He had. He’d put his own priorities in the backseat far too many times. He’d thought now would be the best time to try something for himself. In reality, it had been probably the worst. 

Wilbur had been tired of it, of putting L’Manburg first, and Tommy was beginning to be too.

Tommy, contrarily, was certainly not planning on blowing anything up, or setting anything else alight. Not now, especially. The two of them were not that similar.

But if Wilbur was in Tommy’s place, and in his right mind, what would he do? 

Follow Tubbo’s orders? Simply because he was president?

Or fight against Dream? Simply because he was not?

Tommy knew the answer. 

Wilbur wasn’t proud of him yet. Wherever he was, either the gates of heaven or the sewers of hell, he was watching Tommy, and he wasn’t done yet. 

Tommy would make Wilbur proud. 

He still trusted Tubbo. He didn’t plan on asking for his disc back anytime soon. 

But it was about time Tommy stopped leaning on him like a crutch. In the end, they were both kids. They had both been forced into war far too young. Neither of them always did the right thing. 

Tubbo…

He’d go back in a box.

Tubbo in a box.

For now, Tommy would box him up and place him on a shelf, somewhere he could still see him, could still reach him if he truly needed him. But for now, Tommy would be facing things alone. He needed Tubbo in the box in order to do the right thing.

To make him proud. 

Tubbo would do what he needed to do. Tommy knew that. And on Friday…

Depending on what happened on Friday, Tommy would do what he needed to do as well. He had plans, of course. He hadn’t been so stupid as to go into this without one. He had options. They were just options which he very much did not want to resort to in the slightest. 

Tommy had said it once before. 

They were all in a box.

And they were. But he was realizing now that they were not in a box together. They each had their own boxes, and would each fight their own battles in order to get out.

Riddles. Metaphors. Since when did Tommy speak in fucking clichés…God, he really was becoming Wilbur. 

Tommy found himself at his bench, and sat. Until his feet grew numb. Until his joints needed popping. He recognized Ranboo’s presence at some point, and did not stop him when he sat as well, again, slightly too fast for a human. There was much to think about. For everyone. Much to plan. 

Tommy made a decision there and then. He was alone in this again. He wanted to trust Tubbo, but wouldn’t. At that moment in time, he put Tubbo in his box and put him away.

He wanted to trust Ranboo. The man just had a way about him. But Tommy was too smart for that. Far too smart. He wouldn’t.

For a moment, though, just a single moment…

Tommy did consider perhaps doing something about that flash of pink, the cape, and the heavy crown that kept flashing into his vision all day long.

**Author's Note:**

> There is a chance this one might turn out to be more than one chapter. I suppose you'll just have to wait and see...
> 
> also sorry my pieces are usually kinda short...i feel like people get bored of me just ranting in the form of tommy so they don't get too long usually. also i usually do this in one go (also not very writer-esque of me but oh well. lmk if you have any criticisms! those are fun


End file.
